I think we can all agree that Instagram is vital component to a successful marketing plan. And with so much competition out there, you definitely want to make sure that you maximize your Instagram engagement.
People love looking at pictures, and Insta is a great platform for telling your brand’s visual story.
Here’s a handful of tips that you can implement on your account right now to get more likes, comments, and shares:
Use photos / videos without text on them to expand Instagram reach.
That’s right, NO MORE FLYERS. The more text in the photo, the more likely the algorithm is going to downplay your post. Use brightly colored, high resolution images to grab attention.
Treat your captions like mini-blog posts.
Deliver a ton of value in your caption. Describe your process. Show your personality. Studies have shown that the more time that your audience spends on your post (ie. reading your caption, if it’s long) the more that your account will be bumped up in the algorithm.
That being said – captions are truncated to only display the first few lines. Make sure that you make the first few phrases impactful, so that they want to read more.
Post at times when your audience is online for maximum Instagram engagement.
If you have a business account, use those analytics tools to find out what the best times are for your brand.
Put your hashtags in the original caption of your post.
Posts are added to hashtag searches in order of publication time. Adding your captions to the caption itself ensures that you are added to those searches as quickly as possible. The longer that you wait to add your hashtags, the more likely that your post will be buried by others with the same hashtag.
Always add a location tag to posts and stories.
This will make your post show up in the location-based search, which will expose your post to someone that might be browsing that location.
Follow your best followers and like / comment on their posts.
These fans often will become your brand’s ambassadors, which means free word-of-mouth promo for you!
Create content for IG TV.
This is the vertical-format YouTube-style feature for Instagram, where you can upload video that is up to one hour long. A lot of brands are leveraging this feature for more polished, professionally-shot content to showcase new projects. Think of it as your YouTube channel inside of Instagram.
Try going Live in Insta Stories.
This is a great way to interact with fans on the fly. There are so many possibilities with how to use this feature – giveaways, interviews, live footage of events, etc.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Need help growing your Instagram account? Book a call with me – I’d love to chat with you about how I can help you reach your goals.